Install Oracle Java 7 on Linux Mint 13

This tutorial will show you how to install Oracle Java 7 on Linux Mint 13. By default, Linux Mint 13 already equipped with OpenJDK Java JRE. But in case you want to change Linux Mint 13 to use Oracle Java 7 instead of OpenJDK, this tutorial will show you how to do that. So the objective of this tutorial is to remove IcedTea web plugin on Linux Mint 13 and install Oracle Java 7 on Linux Mint 13.

Before we go any further, you may need to download the latest package of Oracle 7 for Linux. Go to this web address and select Oracle Java (JRE) for Linux 32 bit/64 bit and select .tar.gz package. You will have a file called: jre-7u7-linux-i586.tar.gz. Save that file for later use.

Remove IcedTea web plugin from Linux Mint 13.

In order to avoid conflict, I prefer to remove the default OpenJDK web java plugin from my computer. I go to Synaptic Package Manager and remove any IcedTea-plugin installed.

Now, we can start installing Oracle Java 7 on Linux Mint.

Extract the file jre-7u7-linux-i586.tar.gz

tar xzvf jre-7u5-linux-i586.tar.gz

It will produce a directory such as: jre1.7.0_05

Next execute this command to create a new directory /usr/java and move the folder to the new dir.

sudo mkdir /usr/java
sudo mv jre1.7.0_05 /usr/java

Now we need to create a symlink to the java binary

sudo ln -s /usr/java/jre1.0.5_05/bin/java /usr/bin/java

If the file /usr/bin/java already exist (created by OpenJDK), we can remove or rename it first

sudo cp /usr/bin/java /usr/bin/java_backup
sudo ln -s /usr/java/jre1.0.5_05/bin/java /usr/bin/java

Now check java version

java -version

The output:

mint@mint ~ $ java -version
java version "1.7.0_05"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_05-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 23.1-b03, mixed mode)

At this point, Oracle Java 7 is installed on Linux Mint 13. Now we need to add java plugin to Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.

Still on Terminal, type this command